Research on social memory phenomena is confronted with the problem that social memory has neither a substrate in the sense of a remembering subject nor a central organ of an operating memory in the sense of a human brain. As a consequence, social memory exclusively exists between subjects and not within them, its form of existence consists of communication. In its first part, the article presents examples of family conversations that show that family memory does not serve as storage for memories, but rather serves as a catalyst for the most different elements of the past to be specifically combined by the involved persons. On the basis of a replication of Bartlett’s classical experiment on remembering and re-narrating, the second part of the article demonstrates that the acquisition and transmission of imaginations of the past follows patterns that are specific to the respective generation. This leads to theoretical remarks on the constitutive viscosity of social memory.
This article deals with the question of how personal memories of the national socialist past in Germany are passed on to younger generations. Rather than viewing this process as an unidirectional handing down of memories from generation to generation, examination is made of how memories are negotiated and re-created in intergenerational discourse. Drawing on a series of case studies, there is discussion of how the meaning of past experiences is construed and organized within particular narrative genres. In order to understand the ways memories are recomposed in the course of social transmission, the analysis highlights the role of group concerns. Against this backdrop, Bartlett’s observations on the repeated reproduction of narratives and Halbwachs’ ideas on the collective memory of the family are presented and discussed as early versions of a sociocultural approach in psychology.
Self-awareness and identity are important cornerstones of thinking in social psychology. On the basis of current knowledge and theories from the social, cultural, and biological sciences, this paper attempts to outline an integrative approach to the phenomena of memory and reminiscence. Reference to psychodynamic argumentation is made in addition, where appropriate. The central topic to our argumentation is autobiographical memory, which we analyse according to evolutionary, neuroscientific, and cultural findings. The emotional context and the ontogenetic development of reminiscences (or memories directly relating to one's own self) provide the preliminary framework for an integrated view which includes interactions between the life span, brain development, the social and cultural environment, and genetic predispositions.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.